PVC Pipe Industry News

PVC pipe is the ideal pipiing material for trenchless water infrastructure projects. Here are 10 advantages of using PVC pipes for trenchless pipelines.

Lower cost, proven long term durability and resistance to corrosion make PVC pipes the ideal pipeline solution for water transfer.

Economic benefits of PVC Pipes

Poorly managed stormwater can cause problems on and off site through erosion and the transportation of nutrients, chemical pollutants, litter and sediments to waterways. Unlike sewage, stormwater is generally not treated before being discharged to waterways and the sea.

New generation material efficient PVC pipes are the ideal pipe for stormwater transfer, their inherent properties and benefits meaning that stormwater can be transferred or discharged quicker and cleaner.

Several studies and reports have concluded that concrete pipes have a greater negative effect on water chemistry than PVC Pipes for certain chemical attributes. It is commonly known as the urban stream syndrome, where the streams and rivers are being polluted not just from the waste that is being carried in the water, but by the concrete pipes and pipeline infrastructure carrying the water.[1]

The challenge for those within the urban water profession is both to protect both water quality and the ecological health of urban environment [2]. The study found that at a catchment scale, concrete pipes, as a conduit for stormwater, have a greater negative effect on water chemistry than PVC Pipes for certain chemical attributes.

The downstream environmental benefits of reduced stormwater pollution [3] are:

PVC is an important material of choice for pressure pipeline applications throughout the world, and technological advancements have introduced different use PVC pipes to the Australian market – PVC-M and PVC-O.

Unplastisicised PVC (PVC-U) was first developed in the 1930's and came to be used in pressure pipelines from the 1950's, firstly in Europe, followed by the United States and then Australia since the 1960's. The product has a well-known and respected performance history in pipeline applications.[1]

More recently technological advancements in PVC pipes have led to the subsequent development of Modified PVC (PVC-M) and Oriented PVC pipes (PVC-O). Australian was an early adopter of PVC-O pipe with local manufacturing commencing in 1984. Australia has continued to be at the forefront of significant advances for PVC-O pipe when local manufacturers developed the process that would significantly increase the output of PVC-O pipe. From this work came the in-line orientation process, where a feedstock pipe from the extruder is stretched over a mandrel or plug under tightly controlled conditions to produce a bioriented PVC pipe. More recently, an alternative process has been developed that orients feedstock pipe by inflating with pressurised hot air. These processes havebecome the standards for production of PVC-O pipes around the world. Australia continues to have the largest PVC-O pipe manufacturing capacity in the world.

As the original PVC pipes installed across Australia start to exceed 50 years’ service, there is no reason to assume these pipes are no longer providing good service. Several analytical studies have estimated that PVC pipe can have a useful life of over 100 years.

Late last year, pipe manufacturer Iplex Pipelines opened a PVC recycling centre at their Sydney factory in response to customer enquiries. However as noted by the Plastics Industry Pipe Association of Australia Limited (PIPA), “As PVC pipe has an anticipated service life in excess of 100 years, research conducted by Iplex and the Plastics Industry Pipes Association of Australia has revealed very little waste PVC pipe product from demolition sites is finding its way to landfill. In the decades ahead, this situation may change but for now most PVC pipe entering the waste stream is short offcut pieces and surplus unused new product.

“The resin used in the manufacture of PVC pipe and fittings is 100% recyclable and a valuable resource that deserves a second life.”

As buried water pipeline assets age, their failure rates increase and they incur higher cost consequences. In Australia, asbestos cement pipes are among the oldest assets in many networks and, consequently, they exhibit the highest failure rates.[1] Australia’s wide network of cast and ductile iron pipes are also a major concern for high failure rates and burst water mains.

PVC pipe accounts for 75percent of the pressure reticulation pipelines being installed in Australia today and over 90percent of the sewer reticulation pipelines. ¹

Within any pipeline system, one of the major concerns for engineers is pipe blockages.

You don’t have to go back too long to remember tight water restrictions in Queensland, timed showers and monitoring your neighbours watering their gardens. While at the moment we are not on water restrictions, the news Queensland Urban Utilities and Unitywater, South East Queensland’s water retailers are washing away more than 20 billion litres of water each year due to burst and leaking water mains is a slap in the face, especially when both water utilities are lobbying for water price hikes of more than $80 per year per household.

A local council in the US has recently reported that replacing city water lines with PVC pipes has cut the number of pipe breaks in half – with pipe breaks already down 90% in 2014 over same time 2013.

A challenge of the PVC pipes industry has been to push the traditional limit of PVC-O pipes past 300mm without lowering the orientation degree and decreasing the material quality, ensuring pipes are available for pressure ranges up to 25 bars.

Coal seam gas production is water hungry business. Millions of gigalitres of water are brought to the surface, removed from the coal seam in order for the gas to be extracted. Conservative estimates suggest coal seam gas wells could draw 300 gigalitres of water from the ground each year from the some 40,000 coal seam gas wells estimated for Australia. Once the water is brought to the surface, it needs to be transferred via a vast network of underground water pipes to large feed ponds on mining tenements. 

2013 sees the completion of to date the largest stock and domestic supply pipeline project in Australia. The project was commissioned in 2010 and has been supplying the community of the Wimmera Mallee very successfully since that time.